Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The ACRES scheme is one that the Deputy has promoted strongly and will be of significant benefit to farmers in his constituency. Indeed, it has been warmly welcomed and embraced by farmers across the country. It is a logistically tight timeframe in relation to making applications. It is necessarily so because of the timeframe involved in getting approval for it from the European Commission and also having the application submitted in time for the end of this year so we can have as many farmers as possible in this scheme for full payment next year. I am aware of the challenge for advisers, in particular, in relation to the 21 November deadline and I have been monitoring it closely. There may be some scope there for a slight extension of that, which I am looking at at the moment, and I will revert to the Deputy on that and bring clarity to that matter in the next couple of days.

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